Wesley was curious as to whether his conjecture was correct but he had other tasks closer at hand, namely his duel, which was due to start in just over an hour.

Casting his newfound discoveries to the depths of his mind, he focused his mind and meditated, preparing his mental state.

Meanwhile, Gust simply sat back in his seat and enjoyed the view before his eyes. Since he could remember, he’d wanted to be a mage, to be one of those that stood at the top of society. He’d wanted to feel the power to fully control one’s life, to have enough power at one’s fingertips to command the respect of the masses.

Unfortunately, life had clearly never planned to give him the opportunity to learn magic. Even if he were to start now, at 16 years of age, the prime years to nourish and develop one’s mana pool and channels had almost completely passed for him. Even if he were to start learning now, he’d never reach the level of power he yearned for.

“Haha…” Gust chuckled to himself, then looked down at his kukris, then at Wesley. “Oh well, at least I still have this stupid little bugger.”

Still, there was a certain shine in his eyes as he watched the spectacle on the arena stage.

Time passed, and soon it was nearly time for Wesley to ascend to the stage. Meanwhile, a young man by the name of Marcus, had likewise arrived at Arena 3.

Marcus was quite an interesting case. A genius at birth, he’d quickly attracted the attention of the Larwin Kingdom’s royal family, and had been placed in a prestigious position at the Larwin Institute of Elementary Magic.

With servants at his beck and call, a personal chef at his service, and bootlicking “friends”, Marcus had lived like a king at the Larwin Institute of Elementary Magic. However, this treatment, unsurprisingly, swiftly crawled its way into his head. As the years passed, he’d developed a sickening arrogance, to the point where even his family, nevermind the Larwin Royal Family, had grown sick of him.

This all culminated until one day, finally, Marcus crossed the line. At the beginning of his second year at the Larwin Institute of Elementary Magic, he’d already become a Rank 3 Elementary Mage, a full rank higher than any other second-year student. However, his achievement had been met with muted reactions. Other than his “friends” who praised his every action, the majority of the students looked up not to him, but instead to a fellow student by the name of Law.

Widely recognized as the second most talented student of the institute, Law was not only talented, but had a very kind disposition, and was humble, everything that Marcus wasn’t. Jealous of Law’s popularity, Marcus had ordered his “friends” to “invite” Law to a corner of the institute, and had used his stronger power to kill Law in a life-or-death duel.

Almost immediately, however, one of his lackeys had promptly betrayed him, and reported this to the institute’s Disciplinary Committee, who promptly expelled Marcus from the institute. On the same day, his actions prompted not only the Larwin Royal Family from condemning his actions, but also his own family to disown him.

Of course, all of his bootlickers had suddenly disappeared as well.

Despite all of this, however, Marcus hadn’t simply dropped everything and given up on life. Instead, he, a pampered ten year old, had made his way to Border Town in order to cross the Alaki Mountain Range to the Reiniad Kingdom. With his talent, as long as the Reiniad Kingdom’s Reiniad Royal Elementary Institute of Magic was willing to look past his personality, he’d be able to flourish yet again.

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However, in the few weeks he’d been here, he’d yet to find a sizeable group that was looking to cross the mountain range—and he certainly wasn’t willing to risk his life to cross the mountain range with an incompetent team.

In the meantime, he was enjoying himself, bullying the less talented mages he usually encountered here at Border Town.

Today, apparently his opponent was a young, blind mage initiate who’d overestimated himself and had requested to be paired against a Rank 3 Elementary Mage. Looking for his opponent, Marcus cast his eyes over the surrounding audience members, finally settling on a boy who looked to be around eight years old. The kid was in an outfit that reminded him of a colorful chicken, next to a rough-looking teenager gazing at the stage with starry eyes.

Of course, he was looking at none other than Wesley and Gust.

“Heh.” He confidently smirked. “Another easy battle today.”

As if on cue, one of the stadium workers walked up to Wesley and Gust, and motioned that it was Wesley’s turn to go on stage.

“Hey little man, wake up. Your turn.” Gust prodded Wesley a few times before the latter finally responded.

The two walked toward the arena stage, then Gust helped Wesley onto the stage, where Marcus was already waiting.

“Tch. Are you just trying to stall for time because you know you’ll lose? Come, let’s get this started.” Marcus motioned for the referee to begin the duel.

Ignoring Marcus, the referee crouched so that he was eye level with Wesley. “Hey kid, you sure you wanna do this? I got a kid who looks to be the same age as you, and I sure wouldn’t want him fighting around here like this, and you’re blind to boot.”

“I’m sure.”

“...” The referee kept his gaze on Wesley a little longer, then shrugged and backed off. He’d done what he could.

“Ready?”

Wesley nodded.

“Ready?”

Marcus nodded.

“Fight!”

Wesley quickly began drawing his first seal, but he concentrated partially on the seal his enemy was casting, curious as to whether he would feel that “familiar” feeling again. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel the same sensation this time around.

‘I guess he’s not casting an ice-based spell.’

Despite wanting to win, so that he and Gust could afford more “fancy” food later, Wesley wasn’t exactly confident in dealing with a Rank 3 Elementary Mage, and had requested said level of opponent to test his limits after weeks of learning from Thomas in the dream world.

So, he might as well go all-out.

Both Marcus and Wesley had similar drawing speeds, and they activated their seals at the same time.

Bolts of electricity flew out of Marcus’s seal, while icicles flew out of Wesley’s. Several bolts of electricity came into contact with the icicles, and burst them open before dissipating.

However, several icicles made it past the electricity, and the opposite was the same.

Marcus managed to raise his arms to protect himself before the icicles knocked him to the ground. At the same time, Wesley had been electrocuted by the bolts of electricity, and had collapsed to the ground.

However, both duelists had maintained consciousness, and promptly climbed to their feet to cast the second round of spells.

The fight had only just begun!